Snape's Skin
by Ripsnickle
Summary: An evolving and ever-changing look at Snape from his own point of view, ranging from passionate to depressing this is a very metaphorical and analytical portrayal not suitable for the weak-minded.
1. Hallway

Ripsnickle Ripple & The Nine Inch Muse Present:  
  
  
Snape's Skin  
  
  
Disclaimer: J.K Rowling owns all. Such is true for all following chapters.   
  
Rip's Notes: This is a story more concerned with emotion than action-- as such, I do not expect much. It began with an idea for a Snape/Draco story and now evolves into the psychoanalysis of Snape's many sides. I intend to go in many different directions, past and future, for the enlightenment of a very mysterious character. Enjoy!  
  
  
  
Hallway  
  
I have been in the halls walking and thinking. My walk is never aimless, more happens at night in these dungeon passages than one may dream ( or nightmare) about. My thinking is always aimless, and perhaps to equal my intentions on the prowl. One can have the queerest thoughts when all you see is an endless hallway and all you hear are your own footsteps. There was one instance in particular that I remember well.   
  
It was some time after walking in the deeper bowels no longer discouraged me. These were the quiet moments, no students or teachers, portraits or ghosts here, just tender stone pleading for my finger's touch. All was quiet. And then I fell in love.   
I suppose it was more of a subtle delight, but just as violent on the inside. Only by seeing the whites of my knuckles as I fisted my hands could one understand this "subtle delight". And those words are only the simpliest way of describing my thoughts. my heart is woven in silk. The illustrations in my mind of him as I  
walked these dimming halls became more vibrant, more and more, until I was no longer in a hallway, but walking in the image of this angel. My fingernails clutched at the smooth stone walls, I'm sure I stumbled a few times, and then I stopped.  
A dead end.  
  
I walked down that same corridor many times after that and never having a good reason for it, either. I didn't expect another image. I wasn't looking for answers. But reaching the dead end brought back a feeling of extreme want, obsession. The stone is a reminder, even still, though my walks through quiet hallways have ceased to be so frequent, seeing that stone wall always fuels my desire.  
  
And what of desire? Even now, it is different from when I began my private quest. In the beginning, it was towards him, and now it is for him. I told him in the beginning I was fond of him, he and his friends ( or perhaps cronies.. ) reminded me of my old days at hogwarts. I was lying to him, to myself. I enjoy him now because of who he is, not what he symbolizes. I have not told him this, of course. I both anticipate and dread his coming, whether he be alone or in class, because I can see him, but not have him. In many ways, our realationship is like a long walk down a cold corridor.   
If there is a dead end, I will concoct an explosive substance, because Draco Malfoy deserves much more than just a place in my mind. 


	2. Bath

Bath  
  
Deciding exactly what he deserves, like any decision, is best contemplated in the bath. Even now, with more answers than questions, a trip to the bath is an adventure. I'm not speaking of the common bathroom, not even the prefect's bathroom. I present to you the Teacher's Bath. Not bath "room", for this would be called a "bath hall" if describing size.   
Walking into this bath hall is like a trumpet fan fare and cymbals and fireworks. And it really is. A seventy-six piece symphonic band, with orchestral accompaniment, compliments the far wall. The conductor will usually delight in Souza, before sitting at the piano and playing Gershwin, or on my formal and most private request, A selection by Count Basie.   
Why I know about Souza and Basie is quite obvious. I've been to the Muggle World. And a few times. Though I doubt even Dumbledore knows about it.  
Why the conductor knows of these artists is beyond me, espcially taking into consideration that him, and his seventy-six piece symphonic band, with orchestral accompaniment, are all ghosts. Thier vast knowledge of music, and thier death, are unimportant.   
  
That splendor, the bloody velvet dripping from omonously tall windows. Tall, and hardly wide. All the windows on the farthest wall, though the glass was blurred, had the sunshine scream in through them and onto the beautifully crafted tapestry that hung lazily on walls and on floor. The same velvet curtain material draped itself on arm chairs - the comfortable ones that you could snuggle with and fall asleep in. Tables, or mirrors with legs attached, lay neatly beside the disheveled chair so that in thier existence together they neutralized eachother's qualities.   
Perhaps it was the definite, almost inhuman way that souza and his almost symmetrical marches sounded through the hall, but it seemed that everything in the room, the lounge, had more purpose to itself than to be placed and stay forever. These items moved. Just as if the sun only came and went because of it's own intention and not because of Earth's orbit, these objects would form various intricate patterns in the middle of the room, stay for a day or two, and change. Such was the splendor or the lounge. To the right, though sometimes to the left, stood a door which led to the baths.  
  
The soap is compassionate. They line in a row, different colors, shapes, so many that I have not yet tried all of them. some rough to the touch, most softer than the stomach of a puppy. Not one had the normal, taken-for-granted affect of soap, though they all understood that muscle grows tense and skin dry after long hours. They allow charms, but manual wash benefits them more and so they will work harder to become a heavenly lather.  
Easily, my favorite is Jessica. A small, skinny triangular prism-shaped bar with seductive attributes. She is smooth and gentle, but as powerful as any of the rougher bars when the mood takes her. Her color changes from milk white to a dark violent depending on the month. She once told me she liked my hair and I told her she was my favorite.   
Miles is a blue-collared, working class-type soap. Rough, grainy, brown, squared and sharp, although I've seen him become cubed at certain times in the year, he likes doing the ditry work. While Jessica would run herself along my chest, the muscles in my neck, my shoulders, Miles would go straight to my feet. He had earth qualities in him, grounded, didn't talk much.   
There are others. More timid, afraid I may bite. Clear, vicious sphere-shaped ones so hungering for my nails to dig into thier backs. They hold grudges, they have clans and guilds and cults. Poor, old Professor Bromine fell in love with Ali, a complex bar, maybe even personality disorder wrapped up in those intricate layers. Bromine tried to take her back with him, and... well, perhaps the soap is not always compassionate... but the soap is always something.  
  
The bath water was in the same way of moods. I befriended a few tubs in the eastern-most corner of the room, and usually they will let me sit in them. There are no windows in the room, always using a spell to light candles, sometimes the birds that live in the forest get angry with this. They swoop from the forest that is over-grown in the north-eastern part of the bath and will not stop pecking until it is totally dark. I agree with them, darkness rests the eyes, takes one whole sense out of the picture, leaves room for thinking.   
There's a suana in the corner next to the forest. I've never been in there before, it's too foreboding for my tastes. and to is not an item to speak of when the sun is away.  
  
That is where I am when I am thinking, when I am writing. In the lounge listening to Chopin, in the bath listening to the sizzle of tubs, chirping birds.. and always my pulse. My pulse, the internal clock. Sometimes, alone in my bed, already kicked the sheets off me, and sweating.. i will put my index and pointer finger to the side of my neck, and little to the right of my adam's apple, and leave it there. It reminds me that I am alive.  
that I am alive for him.  
  
Again, another bath time realization. 


	3. Purgatory

Purgatory  
  
Living life defeated is easier than fighting. No one understands until it happens, most live in fear about it until later days, greyer days. It's probably best that way. Few tend to have their heart stop thinking and still beat. Even fewer still know when it happens, because unlike bad news, defeat is gentle. Suffice to say defeat is not the true trouble. The realization, the warm, bath time realization. Waiting in the dark for love is grand, waiting and wishing work only to the dreamer's advantage, novacaine for the vile truth.   
Defeat is not Hell. We continue to live on in purgatory, the lot of us. A sing-song sigh of acceptance in honor of unwanted existence. We've sat in wooden chairs at tables cast in metal, played cards, ate carrots. True friends I've met there, ones who can keep a secret and tell one of thier own without worry. Worry-ridden and sickend at the thought of competition, for anything. Most of them are older, and some are ghosts, but all of them have a heart hidden in silk and without thoughts of it's own. Foresake nor pity us, we have learned an art stronger than any spell, potion, or curse: The control of one's own heart. 


	4. Recoil

Descent  
  
A summer breeze polluted with laughter began his second year at Hogwarts. It blew his robes and hair in front of him, pushed him to castle entrance. Crossing the threshold was like an old sweater, full of warmth and memories. Sitting at his regular seat in the dining hall brought on the thoughts.   
He had swallowed his vacation whole, it was quick and petty, and now he reguritated peices of it in his mind... they were sour. It made his mouth water for the magnificent feast soon to come. Sitting through the first year sorting ceremony was more tedious than Professor Tull's pop quizzes, but the food came soon after. Truthfull, though, he had never really enjoyed food. It was satiating the hunger that gave him pleasure. He ate slowly, chewed his food, used his manners. He finished just in time to follow his house to thier dorms.   
It had only been a few hours since putting on his Slytherin House robes, but he could already feel thier mind-altering affects. It was a numbing sensation in his fingers, narrowed eyes, curled lips. His gait changed, he grinned less. Do clothes really make the man? If not, then why would he feel such a change in his entire being in only a few hours? To say he became a shadow of his own accord would be giving him too much credit, because he really didn't even try.   
The Slytherin clan turned a corner and then walked down a staircase. He walked in the back of the line, almost near the end, so that only when he turned the corner did he realize the Slytherins and Gryffindors were passing eachother by on the stairs. It's a strange sight to see, glaring eyes, averted eyes, and all the inbetween. When he finally got to the top step, preparing for descent, he looked up. His eyes had been dropped, not in a passive way, it was uncaring. But now because of the steep angle of the stairs, he could see Grryfindor faces, all blurred but one, one face among the rest shining, a face that owned the name of James Potter.   
Only after the awkwardness of the pass. The way James had stepped up as Severus has stepped down. Thier   
eyes meeting for a second, that one recognition-driven second, and once received, gone. A moment in the eternity that elapsed consisted of thier eyes holding a silent conversation which could've lasted a lifetime, but ended prematurely. Only after all this did he begin to think on James Potter's face. It was too quick and spontaneous to search through his feelings for what he thought of that face during the meet, but afterwards, when he had been settled in his dorm, out of his robes and into his bed, did he begin to think on the face. And the only emotion he could produce was pure adoration.   
  
Though that was hardly the case in the days to follow. 


	5. Descent

Descent  
  
A summer breeze polluted with laughter began his second year at Hogwarts. It blew his robes and hair in front of him, pushed him to castle entrance. Crossing the threshold was like an old sweater, full of warmth and memories. Sitting at his regular seat in the dining hall brought on the thoughts.   
He had swallowed his vacation whole, it was quick and petty, and now he reguritated peices of it in his mind... they were sour. It made his mouth water for the magnificent feast soon to come. Sitting through the first year sorting ceremony was more tedious than Professor Tull's pop quizzes, but the food came soon after. Truthfull, though, he had never really enjoyed food. It was satiating the hunger that gave him pleasure. He ate slowly, chewed his food, used his manners. He finished just in time to follow his house to thier dorms.   
It had only been a few hours since putting on his Slytherin House robes, but he could already feel thier mind-altering affects. It was a numbing sensation in his fingers, narrowed eyes, curled lips. His gait changed, he grinned less. Do clothes really make the man? If not, then why would he feel such a change in his entire being in only a few hours? To say he became a shadow of his own accord would be giving him too much credit, because he really didn't even try.   
The Slytherin clan turned a corner and then walked down a staircase. He walked in the back of the line, almost near the end, so that only when he turned the corner did he realize the Slytherins and Gryffindors were passing eachother by on the stairs. It's a strange sight to see, glaring eyes, averted eyes, and all the inbetween. When he finally got to the top step, preparing for descent, he looked up. His eyes had been dropped, not in a passive way, it was uncaring. But now because of the steep angle of the stairs, he could see Grryfindor faces, all blurred but one, one face among the rest shining, a face that owned the name of James Potter.   
Only after the awkwardness of the pass. The way James had stepped up as Severus has stepped down. Thier   
eyes meeting for a second, that one recognition-driven second, and once received, gone. A moment in the eternity that elapsed consisted of thier eyes holding a silent conversation which could've lasted a lifetime, but ended prematurely. Only after all this did he begin to think on James Potter's face. It was too quick and spontaneous to search through his feelings for what he thought of that face during the meet, but afterwards, when he had been settled in his dorm, out of his robes and into his bed, did he begin to think on the face. And the only emotion he could produce was pure adoration.   
  
Though that was hardly the case in the days to follow. 


	6. Monster

Monster  
  
There is a moment in love where the feeling is so strong it begins to eat away at the original intention. To love so much that there is a desire to emmulate, a want so strong it can only be quenched in the becoming. When there is no poissibility of becoming, there is jealousy. This jealousy, a monster with an insatiable appetite, now thrives in the gut of the victim to slowly eat away at any of love's virtues. You've probably had that gut-wrenching feeling - a silly, slight sickness in the darkest pit of your bowels. Who doesn't have jealousy?   
  
On the seventh day, the monster came. Severus softly accepted this feeling, a quivering inside feeling, and began to manifest it. On this day he did not come outside his dorm, and only opened his curtains to see the sun set. During this time of imprisonment there was much to think on.  
  
"James Potter."  
  
The entire student body turned to focus on the point at the Gryffindor table where James sat. He stood up straight, grinned, and brushed the hair from his eyes. His firm visage was looking directly at the Headmaster.  
  
"Usually, only the largest of announcements are made here in the Great Hall, but I feel that James should be congratulated," Dumbledore paused, his eyes twinkling, "On making the spot of Seeker for Gryffindor's Quidditch team."  
  
The large hall was filled with gasps, murmurs, and excited whispers. After a few seconds the room roared and echoed with applause.   
Severus did not applause. He didn't even hear it. He could only hear the roar of a monster in his stomach. It grew louder and only ceased when his nails drew blood from his clenched fist. The sight of his own blood drained any thought of loving James Potter from his mind. All was black now. It hurt to much to think and after when the food appeared on the table, he excused himself to his dorm.   
  
Severus always had a need to be something other than average. He'd tried being less than his potential in his younger years. There was recognition, but it was too gentle. His parents would speak to him softly and remind him that he need be a great scholar. His parents spoiled him, and he didn't know. Not knowing is far worse. It gave him such a complex, such a need to have all and be all. But he never asked for things. Things weren't enough, he needed praise easily given to him by his own parents, but a challenge for any other.   
He learned that to get the recognition he desired, he would have to work harder. And he always did. But there was an unlucky black cloud, that shadowed his glory from the others.   
James Potter is Severus Snape without the cloud.   
  
Severus supposed that is why he had loved James ever. If not because of his image, than because Severus loved himself, and despite the darkness, were so much alike. Alike in every way except physical ability. Severus had never been good at anything physical. He could ride a broomstick, but not like James Potter. It's sad really, how much depends on natural talent and not hard work.   
  
  
  
That is what he had thought in his day without sun. He watched the sun set and then went to bed. When he woke up, he was a new person. He was more Slytherin than ever. The loathing of James Potter had since faded slightly, but he still had the monster. He woke up early that next morning and went into the bathroom with the intention of fixing his hair. 


	7. Hair

Rip's Notes: Reasoning to Snape's greasy hair!  
  
Hair  
  
There is something you didn't know about young Severus' appearance. Something you wouldn't have caught in my lack of description.   
When his adoration for James Potter became an obsession, he decided to do something drastic. He wanted to be James Potter. Such a feeling is unbearable. Severus thought by cutting his hair like James', he could achieve the feat. It was near madness that made him take the knife, the one his father had bought for him on his 10th birthday, and put it to his beautiful, shoulder-length strands.   
He knew it would not grow back because of his purebred heritage. He knew if he ever wanted it to, it would never look the same. People had always loved him for his magnificent hair. They would stroke it's silken delicacy and swoon at it's touch and feel. It was complete sickness that made him slice it away and trim it short and sweet. Complete obsession makes one do incredible things.   
  
His best feature became his worst that lovely spring morning. The sun was rising as he moved himself into the bathroom and shut the door. He looked in the mirror with total disgust and quickly back down to the book he had in his hands titled "Hair for the Hormonally Challenged." Stolen from the library and very dusty was this savior of a book. He opened it to the page he had marked and read through it in a shuffling whisper.   
  
"For hair growth: Place a strand of wanted hair in a cup of water and swallow it then repeat the incantation. Sleep for an hour and hair it is!   
Warning - Variation on style of wanted hair may occur depending on unknown factors. Conjure with Caution."  
  
He snorted at the final sentence and put the book aside. Wincing as he plucked a stand of hair from his scalp and placed it in a glass of water. He swallowed it easily and then read from the book.   
  
"I beseech you, hair,  
grow from my head,  
so when awakening from my bed  
I feel again the little strands  
of which I've grown to again demand."  
  
In an hour, he awoke, and brushed a hand through his hair. It wasn't it usual soft, silkiness -- but now a glaring, greasy reminder of his fiery hate for James Potter. 


End file.
